European Tour Fantasy Golf Picks & Predictions – Turkish Airlines Open

Fantasy Golf Picks and Predictions for the 2017 Turkish Airlines Open

2017 Turkish Airlines Open Fantasy Preview

The WGC sanctioned HSBC Champions looked set to have an American feel to it last week when first Brooks Koepka and then Dustin Johnson romped into the lead, but DJ’s remarkable collapse on Sunday ensured a couple of European enforcers took over: Henrik Stenson chasing home his good friend Justin Rose, who played the back nine at -5 to claim his first title since the Olympic games of 2016.

Both Rose and Stenson will participate in the first Road to Dubai event this week; the European Tour’s own version of the FedExCup. The top 60 players in the standings are in Turkey for the Turkish Airlines Open, and all will be looking to land some big points ahead of the final two events in South Africa and Dubai.

This tournament switched hosts from the Montgomerie Maxx Royal course to this, the Regnum Carya Golf Resort, prior to last year’s edition, and that means DFS gamers only have one set of data to work with.

More annoyingly, the statistics from 2016 don’t really shed any light on the profile of player we should be looking at drafting, as all different types prospered.

Thorbjorn Olesen of Denmark celebrates after making a birdie on the…

Thorbjorn Olesen of Denmark celebrates after making a birdie on the 18th hole to win the tournament during day four of the World Cup of Golf at Kingston Heath Golf Club on November 27, 2016 in… Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

So we had event winner Thorbjorn Olesen, who found just 53.6% of fairways off the tee. Yet, he ranked eighth and ninth for Greens in Regulation and Putts per Round respectively.

Then there’s David Horsey in T2: he found plenty of fairways but had an average drive length of just 274.9 yards. He too putted excellently.

And how about Bernd Wiesberger in solo fourth: he played superbly from tee-to-green but ranked just 30th for Putts per Round.

Maybe there’s another angle for gamers to consider….perhaps all of the above players were in form heading to Turkey? Not a bit of it: Olesen had missed seven of his previous nine cuts, with a best finish of T30. It’s not as if we can say the Dane was striping it heading into the tournament.

But there is, arguably, a correlation between Regnum Carya and a trio of other tree-lined European courses. The KLM Open has been held at The Dutch since 2016, while the BMW International is held on a rotational basis at Eichenreid and Larchenhof. Olesen, David Horsey, Bernd Wiesberger, George Coetzee, Haotong Li, Joakim Lagergren, and David Lipsky – who were the first seven players home at the Turkish Open last year – have all recorded top-20s in at least one of those other events named above, and in some cases two. It’s a possible angle worthy of further exploration.

With that in mind, who are we drafting for the Turkish Airlines Open?

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This Week’s Turkish Airlines Open Fantasy Picks & Predictions

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This Week’s Turkish Airlines Open Fantasy Picks

George Coetzee – $9,300 – It’s been an excellent month or so for Coetzee, who has landed four top 20s in his last five starts; three of those being top-10s.

That form curve is eye-catching for a player who has endured peaks and troughs throughout his career, but ahead of a return to a course he finished T5 at last year the signs are good.

The South African has also notched top-20s in two of our correlated events (T3 at the KLM Open, T14 at the BMW International), and this being resort golf means trouble off the tee is kept to a minimum – that should suit Coetzee’s low-scoring style.

Bernd Wiesberger – $8,700 – Since winning the Shenzhen International earlier in the year, where he bested Tommy Fleetwood in a playoff, Bernd Wiesberger has largely gone off the boil.

But he has just started to catch the eye again with a pair of T9 finishes in the past month or so – one of those coming at our correlating KLM Open. The other was in China last week, where he played very nicely from tee-to-green and putted well enough to suggest a title challenge is imminent.

The Austrian has notched top-10s in both the BMW International and KLM Open, too.

Joost Luiten – $8,200 – Even though Olesen did his best to disprove the theory, resort golf is set up perfectly for those players in form: they should, theoretically, be well placed to make birdie and birdie.

After his brilliance at the Valderrama Masters, we can conclude that Joost Luiten is very much in form. Cast your mind back to Valderrama, where he valiantly chased home Masters champion and home favorite Sergio Garcia, and at one point even drew level with him on the back nine.

The Dutchman had to settle for second place in the end, but his outstanding iron game did not go unnoticed. He even ranked fourth for Putts per Round; typically the Achilles heel of his game.

A former KLM Open champion, Luiten also has a top-20 in the BMW International to his name.

Paul Dunne – $8,000 – A driving accuracy of 70th out of 78 players at the WGC HSBC Champions last week only partly tells the tale of Dunne’s week; indeed, the fact that he was able to finish T35 suggests the latter parts of his game – approach scrambling and putting – are in decent working order.

And they should be, because the Irishman is in good form at present. He won the British Masters at the start of the month following a scintillating final round of 61, and followed up immediately with T7 at the Alfred Dunhill Links.

The riches and the prestige of the Road to Dubai series should help to refocus his mind again, and a birdie fest at Regnum Carya will do him no harm at all.

Pablo Larrazabal – $7,300 – Larrazabal is very proud of his Spanish heritage, and so it was no surprise that he rediscovered his touch at the Valderrama Masters.

A T12 finish in such tough surrounds was symptomatic of Larrazabal’s willingness to grind, and particularly pleasing was his fourth-place ranking for Putts per Round – an excellent return on the occasionally tricky Valderrama greens.

The Spaniard is no stranger to shooting low numbers, and his last European Tour win came at the BMW International Open in 2015. He was T8 on debut here 12 months ago.

Matt Wallace – $7,000 – What a fantastic first year as a European Tour professional it has been for Matt Wallace. He’s landed his first title at the Open de Portugal and recorded trio of other top-10s; one of those coming at the KLM Open just a few weeks ago.

The Englishman’s last two performances alone confirm why he is one of the hottest properties on the tour. He can go low with the best of them, as evidenced by his -19 total and T4 finish at the Italian Open, before just a week later grinding out a tough four days to finish T18 on debut at Valderrama – no mean feat.

Wallace is made of the right stuff: he won five weeks in a row on the Alps Tour in 2016, and that Open de Portugal title was captured from a wire-to-wire lead. He will have no worries about taking on the big boys should he get into the mix.

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